The Smell of Success

Hollywood gets wind of what The Rock's cooking.

Dwayne Johnson is tall, dark and handsome. He has both a college degree in criminology and a past as a football player at the University of Miami, with a physique to match. He also has a great singing voice, a sense of comic timing and can bring people to their feet by merely raising one eyebrow. The ladies love him, even the old ones. So why would anyone doubt that he has what it takes to be a leading man in Hollywood?

Well, Johnson also happens to be a professional wrestler known as The Rock. Wrestlers in movies, whether they're Mexican-masked luchadore El Santo wrestling rubber-suited monsters or Hulk Hogan overemoting as the eponymous Santa With Muscles, don't always make for a pretty picture. Though well-suited for henchman roles (think Tyler Mane in X-Men or Jesse Ventura in Predator), as leading men wrestlers tend to be one-hit wonders at best -- Hogan's No Holds Barred and Roddy Piper's They Live were successful but were followed by a string of flops. At worst, well, you really don't want to check out the direct-to-video debuts of Ken Shamrock (Champions) or The Ultimate Warrior (Fire Power).

But in last summer's The Mummy Returns, Johnson appeared onscreen for a mere eight minutes and managed to impress studio execs enough for lead roles to start coming his way. Furthermore, a gig hosting Saturday Night Live gave that show its highest ratings in years. He returned to SNL this past weekend for a second go-round, unprecedented for a wrestler. In fact, only Hogan ever hosted prior to that, in 1985, sharing host duties with Mr. T.

Now, with The Scorpion King, a movie loosely based on last year's Mummy Returns, he has his first starring role (billed as The Rock, of course). With a hit tie-in rock video by Godsmack on MTV and positive early test-screening reviews posted on sites like aintitcool.com, the signs so far point toward it doing big business at the box office. But more to the point, will it, or he, be any good? As you might guess, The Rock has his fans.

Says English thesp Steven Brand, who plays The Rock's big-screen nemesis, the evil King Memnon, "It sometimes surprises me that people are surprised he's a good actor, because he's been acting for years as a wrestler. He has created a very identifiable character [with] mannerisms and gestures he's created for the wrestling world." And therein may lie the key to his potential as an actor. For while wrestlers of old were often loud, blustery brawlers even in real life, Johnson is a far cry from the character The Rock seen each week on Smackdown, even if he does answer to that name.

"Hulk [Hogan] comes from a time when the ring persona was a lot of screaming and high energy," says Barry Blaustein, director of the upcoming comedy The Ringer and the wrestling documentary Beyond the Mat. "The wrestlers they put in movies back then were never the best actors. Rock's a better-looking guy, and he can work off not just his size and physique, but he's more of a leading man. He's bright, he's intelligent, and he's got awareness of life outside the ring."

Johnson isn't fazed when comparing his potential career pitfalls to those of his predecessors. For one thing, today's more intricate, soap opera-like wrestling story lines have given a him a better sense of what makes a good drama. "What's helped me in wrestling is the idea of not being afraid to step out of the box -- singing, dealing with old ladies, whatever. And it just so happens I've got great antagonists in front of me, and [as The Rock] I am very entertaining, self-deprecating and always in jeopardy, which is the key for me."

It's this same combination that he hopes to pull off onscreen, and so far he is confident that he has. "I snuck in last night to see the movie [at a test screening], and I was really happy with it. I hope last night's reactions were indicative of how the rest of America's gonna feel about the movie. Because between L.A. and New York, everywhere [else] is a fantastic bullshit barometer. They're either "We like this,' or "We don't like this, and here's why.' They're very vocal and passionate. The only thing I want to do is entertain the fans."

Johnson, perhaps unlike his predecessors, also seems to know his limitations. To that end, at Scorpion costar Michael Clarke Duncan's recommendation, he hired a high-profile acting coach, Larry Moss, who worked with Duncan on The Green Mile. Johnson sums up his previous TV acting "technique" thusly: "OK, here I am, what do you want me to do?" For The Scorpion King, he found himself having to get more emotional than usual. "And before you know it, you're in a moment and crying, and then it's like, "What am I doing? This is B.S.' But [Moss] was fantastic and he helped me tremendously."

Duncan, who has been Johnson's friend ever since they met at a restaurant following a WWF show years ago, was initially amused by watching the People's Champion trying to seriously emote. "When you see one of your boys trying to act, it's like, "Man, you ain't cool like that!' You laugh at 'em. But then he calls me and says, "Let's do a movie together,' and I'm going, "Let's do it.' I never read the script." But don't worry, wrestling fans: Although Duncan has a similar look to that of character actor Tiny Lister (Friday) -- who briefly wrestled, with woeful results, after appearing in No Holds Barred -- he won't be doing any WWF grappling. "I think if you go into wrestling, people won't take your movies as seriously."

Comparisons of Johnson to Arnold Schwarzenegger are inevitable, especially since Scorpion director Chuck Russell also helmed Eraser. The director admits to some similarity: "I find that action scenes lose their guts if you're not out there really doing the deed, and Arnold and The Rock are people that can." Despite that similarity, Russell finds a comparison to someone less obvious more useful. "When I did The Mask, with Jim Carrey, I still had to say "the white guy from In Living Color.' At that time there hadn't been a new comedy star in years. It's very similar for me at this time. I recognize there hasn't been an explosive new star in the genre of action films in some years." Russell, who gave early career breaks to Patricia Arquette, Cameron Diaz and Angela Bettis as well as Carrey, was sold on Johnson after watching the SNL episode. "There's nothing more exciting to me than working with someone new and talented who needs a break."